


Aiming for the Lagrange Point

by mrs_d



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Accusation of Cheating, Bisexual Kaidan Alenko, Bisexual Shepard (Mass Effect), Canonical Character Death, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Mass Effect 3, Moving On, Past Shepard/Jacob Taylor, Post-Horizon (Mass Effect), Rannoch (Mass Effect)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-19 10:00:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29997666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrs_d/pseuds/mrs_d
Summary: Kaidan is back on the Normandy. Shepard wishes she could say that it's just like old times, that it's just like it was before the war, before Cerberus, before the accusations and mistrust between them. But she can't.[Finished, updates are tentatively scheduled weekly, on Fridays, to conclude with the release of the Legendary Edition on May 14, 2021.]
Relationships: Brynn Cole/Jacob Taylor, Garrus Vakarian/Tali'Zorah nar Rayya, Kaidan Alenko/Female Shepard
Kudos: 6





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> "In celestial mechanics, the Lagrange points (also Lagrangian points, L-points, or libration points) are orbital points near two large co-orbiting bodies. Normally, the two objects exert an unbalanced gravitational force at a point, altering the orbit of whatever is at that point. At the Lagrange points, the gravitational forces of the two large bodies and the centrifugal force balance each other. This can make Lagrange points an excellent location for satellites, as few orbit corrections are needed to maintain the desired orbit." (From [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrange_point))

A few days after they have dinner at Apollo’s, it starts to bother her. 

“Cheated,” she mutters as she turns off the water in her private shower. She picks up her towel, wipes a streak through the condensation on the mirror, and stares into her reflected eyes. When she turns her head a certain way, she swears she can see a faint red-orange gleam, buried in the depths of her pupils.

“Cheated,” she says again. The bathroom isn’t large enough to echo, but the word — his word — seems to resonate nonetheless.

She brushes it off and leaves the room. She has more important things to worry about. Traynor just told her about a reactor in the Silean Nebula that’s gone offline, and the Alliance needs fuel a lot more than Shepard needs to think about something Kaidan said. 

* * *

“Cheated,” she tells Liara in the shuttle. She tries to keep her voice down, but James pulls a face and turns away, so Shepard knows she didn’t succeed.

Liara shifts against the hard plastic bench. “Well, I suppose,” she begins diplomatically. “I mean, I guess I can see why he’d—” 

Something must change in Shepard’s expression, because she hurriedly adds, “But if you thought you’d broken up, then— then, I think you should really talk to _him_ about this, Shepard.”

“But what do I say?” Shepard asks, hoping she doesn’t sound desperate. “He thinks we already did that!”

Liara frowns. “Did what?”

“The whole—” Shepard is about to wave her hand around to show what she’s talking about, but then she remembers that she’s holding her favorite gun. “The whole clearing-the-air thing,” she explains. “We talked, in the hospital, and I bought him whiskey. And then I took him out for dinner, and he comes out with this, this— accusation,” is the word she settles on. 

“What did you say when he said that?” Liara asks, ever the logical one.

Shepard shrugs stiffly in her armor. “I didn’t say anything,” she replies. “To be honest, it didn’t really sink in at first, because right after that, he told me he still loved me, and after _that,_ we booked a room at the Presidium Grand, and—”

Cortez clears his throat very loudly. “Two minutes out from the LZ, Commander,” he says.

“So, there wasn’t much talking,” Liara concludes after Shepard acknowledges the report. 

Asari physiology doesn’t allow them to blush the way humans do, but Shepard’s known Liara for years, and she still finds her shy expression as cute as she did when they first met. Maybe if she’d pursued that crush more than the stoic lieutenant with the nice arms three years ago— 

“Right,” she says, cutting off that useless train of thought. Behind her, James is fidgeting. She can hear his heavy boots scrape the floor of the shuttle. 

Liara exhales as she gets to her feet. “Well, clearly, the air isn’t as clear as you thought it was,” she says. 

Shepard chuckles at the slight pun, and Liara smiles, warm and encouraging. “Talk to Kaidan,” she reiterates.

Shepard glances down at herself, armed to the teeth as she is, and sighs. “We’re in the middle of a war,” she says. “I think we have bigger priorities, don’t you?”

“Aw, here I was, just getting interested,” says James suddenly, smacking the button to open the shuttle’s hatch before Cortez has quite set it down. He shouts over the roar of the engine. “It’s like watching telenovelas with my abuela!”

“Can it, Lieutenant,” Shepard retorts, but she’s grinning. 

“Ouch,” says James, in mock offense. “You talk to your old lieu like that? No wonder he’s pissed.”

“He’s not—” Shepard starts, but James hops out of the shuttle before she can finish. Liara, laughing, follows. 

Shepard hefts her weapon and does the same, putting her thoughts aside once more. 

* * *

At least, she intends to. 

The barrier engine in front of her explodes, and a fresh wave of husks rushes up the ramp. She switches weapons but widens her stance, ready for hand-to-hand. The creepy fuckers are fast, they’ll be on her in a second, and she’s on her own. James is dealing with a brute on the other side of the reactor core, and Liara’s with Riley and her team, hopefully having better luck than she and James are right now. 

Shepard fends off the husks with her fists, knocking them back enough to shoot. One explodes with a satisfying burst of gore, but they’ve flanked her somehow. Glowing blue hands are yanking at her shoulders, dragging her backwards. She’s grateful to be wearing a helmet; the last time husks got too close, she could feel the pressure of their icy fingers against her skin for days. 

She punches, kicks, slashes at the closest one with her omni-blade. It crumbles into ash in front of her, but she has no time to celebrate. She shoots another in the head at point-blank range — which probably looks badass, but it’s more luck than skill at this point. 

She’s in the moment, adrenaline is coursing through her, making everything seem a little bit surreal. She hears herself grunt and yell with the effort of beating back the husks, and when her blade slices through the last one standing, she recognizes the word — his word — that’s clawed its way out of her throat, again and again. 

“Damn, Lola,” says James, after they finish off the brute together. “You feel better now?”

“A little,” Shepard admits hoarsely. “Don’t tell Liara.”

“Hey, I’m no snitch,” James replies. “You ever want to take your frustration with the Major out on somebody else, or, hell, if we ever run out of Reapers, I’m good to dance, you know that.”

“Yeah, I do,” says Shepard, as they start to head back to the LZ. “Thanks.”

“Have to be careful, though,” James continues. “Can’t have him thinking I’m after his girl, even if that girl tends to stray.”

“ _That girl_ also tends to shoot people who piss her off,” Shepard reminds him, (mostly) kidding. 

James laughs, full and free, and when she catches sight of Liara, safe and whole by the extraction point, Shepard almost forgets about the war.

* * *

Despite Liara’s advice, she puts off the conversation with Kaidan, only half on purpose. There are Reapers to deal with, after all, and she’s kind of busy. 

On Traynor’s intel, she heads to Gellix, a frozen world on the ass-end of nowhere. They land in the middle of the action, with Cerberus troopers trying like hell to get into the bunker. 

Once they’re clear, she hears a voice she’d know anywhere. “Hello? Who’s there?”

Shepard curses under her breath and rushes forward. She should have seen this coming. Traynor told her they were after a team of scientists who were leaving Cerberus; she should have guessed at who’d be leading them. Still, she didn’t expect— 

“Jacob,” she exclaims. He’s propped up and bleeding, behind cover right outside the main doors. Shepard crouches, medi-gel at the ready. “How bad?”

“I’ll live... I think,” he says. Shepard doesn’t roll her eyes at his familiar tough-guy act, but only because he might be dying. 

Jacob vouches for her over the comms, and the doors open a minute later. They walk in out of the cold, Jacob slumped against Shepard’s shoulder. Kaidan and Garrus follow close behind, guns at the ready. 

After Jacob introduces them, Dr. Cole — Brynn — explains their situation. Goddamned Illusive Man, making everything about this war harder, Shepard thinks with disgust.

Jacob heads for the stairs to check the network link. He’s clutching his side, but trying to stand tall and walk it off.

“Jacob, you should get that wound looked at,” Shepard can’t help but call after him. 

“I’m good. I mean, I will,” he answers over his shoulder.

Shepard marvels inwardly because, holy hell, she has a type.

“You know this Jacob guy?” asks the other handsome, stoic biotic she’s slept with.

“Jacob helped me take down the Collectors,” Shepard replies. This isn’t the time or place to get into more detail than that. 

Thankfully, Kaidan doesn’t push. They reconvene with Brynn, who walks them through the evac plan. There are more staff than Shepard expected, and she never imagined they’d be escorting children, but it makes sense. The Illusive Man is ruthless enough to go after soft targets; if the scientists hadn’t taken their families when they flew the coop, chances are they wouldn’t have families for very much longer. 

As she listens to Brynn talk, watches her give orders to her people and make plans to ensure their survival, Shepard has a funny feeling, like she’s on the outside looking in. It takes a second, but eventually it clicks: Jacob has a type, too — strong women with leadership skills and a no-nonsense attitude.

She can see it even before he officially tells her — the light in his eyes when he talks about the work he’s found here. The way he turns his head in Brynn’s direction when she asks without asking if he’ll join her on the Normandy. The emphasis he puts on building a life, on having a family. 

“It could’ve been you,” he says, with a rueful smile, “but I think we both know the Normandy’s your real love.” 

That’s when Shepard knows they’re really over. Part of her wishes she was sadder about that.

Still, after a quick glance at the door to make sure Kaidan’s out of earshot, she asks if he forgot about her. She wonders, briefly, if he’ll say the same thing Kaidan said, about cheating. She wonders if the two of them are really as alike as they seem. 

“Come on, Shepard,” he says, proving her wrong. “Did you want me to wait forever?”

 _No,_ she thinks, relieved. She’s always appreciated Jacob’s honesty. So she asks the official question about Brynn, and he gives her the official answer. He also apologizes, even though he really doesn’t have to. 

“I want you to be happy, Jacob,” she tells him, and it’s the truth. Her eyes land on Kaidan again, and she adds, “Besides, I’m with someone, too.”

“Really?”

Like he can feel her watching him, Kaidan turns and gives her a shy, uncertain smile that reminds her of their early days, when they were getting to know each other on the old crew deck. That was only three years ago, but it feels like so much longer. 

“Yeah,” she says simply. 

“Good,” says Jacob, and his smile is familiar, too. 

He was her landing zone, she thinks, as she leaves the med bay. After Cerberus rebuilt her, after Kaidan... after Horizon, Jacob offered her safe harbor, a place to get to know herself and her body again. He gave her what she needed, and she hoped she did the same for him. 

Was that love, she wonders, following Garrus and Kaidan into the elevator. It’s so different — it was different even then — from what she feels for Kaidan. What she’s felt for Kaidan since the days of those first uncertain smiles. Doesn’t he know that? Can’t he see?

“Everything okay, Commander?” he asks, as the elevator starts to rise to the roof. 

Shepard watches the icon that flashes with each floor they pass. “I slept with him,” she says, without really meaning to.

“Spirits,” Garrus mutters like a curse. Kaidan says nothing, but the silence says plenty. 

There’s no time — there’s never time — to dwell on it. The elevator doors open, and they’re under fire only a second later. They dispatch the threat and reactivate the first AA gun, but they hit a snag with the second. It’ll need to be repaired manually, which means Garrus is tied up with that while another Cerberus shuttle closes in. 

“Stay focused, Major,” Shepard says. “Just you and me.”

For one second, she thinks he might argue. But— 

“You got it,” he says, and Shepard nods. 

When the guns are up and running, they start the evacuation. Cerberus doesn’t make it easy, but the civilians get away, and Shepard finds herself facing down a squadron of troopers while Jacob’s team brings the last shuttle to her. 

“Take out Shepard!” one of the troopers shouts, confirming her suspicions that this is personal. 

The shuttle comes quick, but Cerberus is quicker. While Kaidan and Garrus board, Shepard dodges a blast from the Atlas and stumbles, dropping her weapon. She hears her name again and turns. It’s Brynn, of all people, helping her up, while Jacob provides covering fire with Shepard’s gun. He targets a generator, and the explosion buys them enough time to take off.

“Just like old times, huh?” Jacob says, once the doors are sealed behind them. 

“Right down to the white and yellow shuttle,” Shepard agrees with an adrenaline-fueled grin. “Thanks,” she adds, when Jacob hands her back the gun. 

“Hey, no problem,” Jacob replies. “Felt good to blow those bastards up.”

“You’re lucky they didn’t blow _you_ up,” Brynn cuts in. She pokes at Jacob’s side, where his uniform is still torn and bloody. “Promise me that next time, you’ll at least wait until the medi-gel is finished its job?”

“I’m fine,” Jacob protests. He pulls her hand away from his torso and wraps an arm around her shoulder. “You worry too much.”

“I can’t help it,” says Brynn softly. Shepard looks away from the nauseatingly sweet scene and finds Kaidan watching her with a strange, thoughtful expression.

“What?” she asks, stepping away from Jacob and Brynn. 

But Kaidan just shakes his head. Shepard is about to press him on it when Garrus interrupts. 

“So you _were_ a thing,” he says. Shepard and Kaidan both turn, Shepard with her eyebrows raised. Garrus waves a three-taloned hand towards Jacob, who’s now heading to the front of the shuttle with Brynn still glued to his side. “I didn’t believe the rumors last year.”

“There were rumors?” Shepard asks before she can think better of it. She really should think better of it, because Kaidan tenses beside her. A muscle has started jumping in his jaw. 

Garrus doesn’t seem to notice. “Oh yeah,” he says. “The crew had a betting pool. I think Jacob and Kelly were the top contenders. Even Liara got in on the action, though I’m guessing she knew all along.”

“I didn’t tell her,” says Shepard, but she quickly adds, “Like that matters.”

Garrus laughs. “She does have a habit of finding these things out on her own,” he says, activating his omni-tool. “Guess I may as well send her her hundred credits now. She’s gonna be so smug.”

“Rookie mistake, Vakarian,” Kaidan says, “betting against T’Soni.” 

He almost sounds normal. Almost sounds like he’s not choking to death. Shepard reaches out to touch, to soothe, but he pulls away, wanders over to inspect a blank vid comm screen like it’s the most interesting thing he’s seen all day. 

“You’d think I would’ve learned by now,” Garrus agrees with forced cheer. He looks up from his omni-tool and meets Shepard’s eye. His mandibles flare out, then settle. She had trouble interpreting that expression when they’d first met, but now, she knows what he’s asking. 

“It’ll be all right,” she says, pitched low so Kaidan won’t hear. She scrapes up a smile. “You won’t lose any money this time, I promise.”

Garrus’s blue eyes glimmer with mischief. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Commander.”

“Sure you don’t,” says Shepard.

* * *

They find a safe landing zone a few dozen clicks away, and coordinate a rendezvous with Cortez. The Cerberus shuttle touches down to wait, and Jacob opens the hatch. They say their goodbyes, and Garrus and Kaidan pile out. 

Jacob makes like he’s going to give Shepard a hug, then backpedals and goes for a handshake instead. She smiles at him through the slight awkwardness, and he smiles back. A second later, he squeezes out past her, saying he forgot to ask Garrus a question. 

“Well, it was nice to meet you,” Shepard says to Brynn, extending her hand. But Brynn, to Shepard’s surprise, tugs her close and wraps her up, armor and all, in a tight hug.

“Thank you, Commander, for getting my people out alive,” she says, pulling back after a moment. 

“Just doing my job,” Shepard replies, as automatic as breathing. 

“Still...” Brynn glances around, as if to confirm they’re alone. They are; Kaidan is pacing the tarmac, presumably keeping an eye on their perimeter, while Garrus is fixing something on Jacob’s rifle a few metres away. 

“I know things are a bit complicated,” Brynn goes on. “With you and Jacob, and your history. Thank you for being professional today, and— and for taking it easy on him. On us.”

Shepard realizes her smile feels plastic and drops it. “It’s fine,” she says sincerely. “Times like these, we’ve got to focus on what matters.”

Brynn nods. “Yes,” she agrees with fervor. “And what matters is stopping the Reapers. Now that we’re free of the Illusive Man, we’re happy to do all we can to help the Alliance.”

“Glad to hear it,” says Shepard, relieved and somewhat eager for this conversation to be over. 

“And we really are happy for you,” Brynn adds, when Shepard is about to step back. “For you and Major Alenko, I mean. I hope— well. I wish you both all the best.”

She says this last part the way a lot of people have been talking to each other lately — like it’s the end of the galaxy, and she knows the words may not matter in the long run, but feels like she should say them anyway.

“Thank you,” says Shepard, because she knows that, too. 

Brynn nods again. Shepard steps down to join the men on the ground as Cortez talks in her ear, reporting that he’s only thirty seconds out. 

_Thank God,_ Shepard thinks with a shiver. She can’t wait to get off this frozen rock. 

As the blue Alliance shuttle comes into view, Garrus pronounces Jacob’s rifle fixed and hands it back. Jacob says goodbye again, and Kaidan won’t look at her, but he shakes Jacob’s hand and waves at Brynn as she closes the hatch for takeoff. 

Which affirms that Shepard is the only one he’s mad at. She sighs, rolls her neck in an attempt to ease the tension that’s taken up permanent residence there, and waits for Cortez to take her home.

* * *

She and Kaidan don’t usually see much of each other for the first 24-hour cycle after they return from the field. It’s not intentional; Shepard has post-action briefings, updates from the Council and the Alliance, and paperwork, of course. Add in the inevitable fires that only she can put out, and the need for a shower, food, and sleep, and her first day back is always kind of a wash.

It’s much the same for Kaidan; he’s a Spectre, too, and the Alliance has him acting as a consultant to certain biotics divisions — students and soldiers like the ones he used to lead. He responds to all of them, worries about all of them, and he’s working too hard, probably, like everyone on the Normandy is right now.

Still, the Normandy isn’t exactly a big ship, and their paths periodically collide. Shepard is almost used to it — used to sharing space with him again — but every now and then she’ll turn a corner and feel surprised to run into him. 

So it is a little strange when nearly two full 24-hour cycles pass without seeing or talking to him. At about hour 42, she settles in at her desk, quiet music on the sound system, and focuses on nothing but paperwork until her eyes are blurry with fatigue and her hamster has started digging in his bedding and nibbling on the edge of his food dish. If he were on Earth, this would mean that it’s night time, but given that they’re in space, and night and day mean nothing, Shepard usually takes this as a sign that it’s time for a break. 

She stands, stretches, rolls her neck and shoulders some more. The day-cycle’s almost over, and she’s still in her fatigues; she should take a shower and change into her sweats, then think about going to bed. But she knows she won’t sleep. Not easily, anyway, and probably not without dreaming. 

She’s spared from having to make a decision by the chirp of the intercom. “Commander?” says Traynor’s voice, a bit hesitantly. 

“Yeah?” Shepard answers at once. 

“Sorry to disturb you, I know you’re working, but Major Alenko is requesting a word. He’s in the crew quarters.”

Shepard scowls. “He couldn’t have told me that himself?” she says without thinking. 

“Um,” comes Traynor’s reply. “Well, uh—”

“Never mind,” Shepard says. “Tell him I’ll be right there.”

“Aye aye, ma’am,” says Traynor with obvious relief, and terminates the connection.

Shepard sighs. “So much for a shower,” she tells her hamster, and steps into the bathroom anyway, to freshen up a little before she goes downstairs.

Since he’s too much of a gentleman to kick Liara out of the official XO’s office, Kaidan has converted the Starboard Observatory into a makeshift quarters, to give the second human officer on this ship a modicum of privacy. Not that he sleeps there often; only when their schedules conflict too much to share Shepard’s bed, or when one of them is ashore.

So if it was strange not to see him for almost two days, it’s even stranger to see him in the crew quarters. She wonders if he bribed people to stay away, because the usually bustling room is empty when she walks in. He looks up from the screen in front of him as she approaches.

“Hey, Kaidan,” she says quietly. For a second, she worries that she should have addressed him by his title. He’d sent a request through official channels, after all; maybe this meeting has nothing to do with their personal lives. 

But Kaidan calls her by her name, and his smile is almost easy. Shepard relaxes a little, and asks him what’s up. 

He half-turns in his chair, facing her directly. “So, was that Jacob Taylor, on Gellix?” he asks, too casual by half. 

Shepard’s stomach plummets. He knows the answer already; the question isn’t a question so much as an introduction to what’s sure to be an uncomfortable discussion. 

_You really want to do this now?_ she thinks, but she doesn’t say that.

“Yeah,” she says simply, and waits for the hammer to fall. 

But Kaidan just clasps his hands and leans in on his elbows. “Well, at least I wasn’t thrown over for some volus accountant,” he says, drier than dust. “Knowing you have some taste makes it sting less.”

Shepard stares, then laughs. Aside from shyly coming out to her in the hospital room when she first admitted she’d been with someone else, he hasn’t brought up his bisexuality. Unlike Shepard’s, it’s a relatively new discovery; dating that doctor on the Citadel was apparently a wake-up call, and Shepard is sad she missed it, what with being dead. 

The ice effectively broken, she slides into the chair opposite him. “Don’t worry, we’re good,” he reassures her. 

She’s glad, but she also can’t help noticing that it’s another statement, not a question. In his mind, they _are_ good; Shepard cheated on him, and he’s forgiven her. He’s put it behind them already. Easy as pie.

 _Not exactly,_ whispers a tiny, unsettled voice in her head. Shepard ignores it. 

Kaidan quickly turns the conversation in a more philosophical direction. It turns out that this kind of is a work thing, because he wants to know what they’re supposed to do about good people — like Jacob and Brynn — who might still be stuck in Cerberus. 

“Anyone that comes forward, we help,” Shepard tells him, assuring him that that’s the best they can do. 

But Kaidan isn’t content to leave it at that. He gets to his feet and paces as he asks her about the team who resurrected her. Then— 

“And the Illusive Man?” he asks, his face and body turned away from her.

 _Ah._ That’s why they’re having this conversation here, on neutral ground, where any of their subordinates might walk in at any moment. The last few times they’ve talked about Cerberus directly — on Horizon, on Mars — it’s gotten pretty ugly. He wants to keep it civil, keep himself in check.

The Illusive Man, she realizes, is the true interloper in their relationship; he’s come between them far more than Jacob ever could. But given that Jacob — a good, attractive man that Shepard had feelings for — used to work for him, it’s a mess of complications that criss-cross professional and personal boundaries. 

Shepard is too tired to sort it out right now. Tonight, it’s enough that Kaidan isn’t angry with her, isn’t interested in rehashing every detail of her time with Jacob, isn’t obsessed with staking his claim on her, or engaging in some kind of macho pissing contest that even Wrex would call overkill. 

Really, of all possible outcomes, this one — Kaidan introspective and asking questions without making accusations — is the best she could have hoped for, under the circumstances. 

“Thanks, Shepard,” he says finally. “I’m glad we could talk about this.”

“You should find a way to take your mind off things,” she replies, hoping that he’ll catch her meaning, read between the lines and accept her unspoken invitation. 

But he doesn’t. Instead, he says something about teaching Joker to play poker. Shepard, confused, answers in like kind, and when the conversation reaches its logical conclusion, he says, “See you around,” like they haven’t slept in the same bed nearly every night-cycle since he came back to the Normandy almost a month ago.

“You bet,” Shepard says — almost normal, almost cheerful — and walks away. 

She stops by the CIC on her way up and tells Traynor she isn’t to be disturbed, except in case of emergency, for the next five hours. A short trip up the elevator, and she’s back in her quarters, tossing her dirty uniform to the floor, turning on the shower. 

Her thoughts stay twisted into Kaidan-shaped knots while she lathers up the scratchy, military-issue washcloth she keeps forgetting to replace and begins to wipe away the day’s sweat. The hot water pounds against the nape of her neck, where she knows there’s at least one Cerberus-stamped metal plate holding her body together. Sometimes, she swears she can feel it grind under the perpetually tight muscle. Sometimes, she wonders if it’s the reason her neck muscles are so tight in the first place. 

Or maybe it’s this goddamned war that she doubts she’ll survive intact. 

The sound of her cabin door opening startles her. She freezes. Old instincts berate her for not having a gun handy, but then reason kicks in, and she relaxes, remembers that her door doesn’t unlock for just anyone. 

“You can come in,” she calls. When the bathroom door opens, she turns to face him and gets a little thrill out of watching his eyes drop, his breath catch. “Decided to skip poker night?” she asks.

Kaidan shakes himself slightly and chuckles. “About ten seconds after you left, I realized what you were saying.” He takes off his boots, sets them outside the bathroom, then returns. His shirt is already half-lifted, his pants unzipped. 

“Ten seconds, huh?” Shepard teases. She lets her gaze slide down over his body as it’s revealed. “So what the hell took you so long to get up here?”

“Maybe I just like making you wait,” he parries back, stepping into the shower behind her. 

“We both know that’s not true,” Shepard says, and the conversation drops there. She hums with pleasure when he presses against her, a warm solid line, steady and immovable at her back. 

His fingers run gently through her hair, rinsing out the last of the shampoo, and when it’s clean, he nudges it forward till it hangs over her shoulder, its tips brushing her sensitive right nipple. She closes her eyes as his hands knead her tense shoulders, work some of the tightness out of her neck. She can’t help rolling her hips back into his touch, rubbing the base of her spine against his hardening cock over and over again, until his breath is loud in her ear. 

“Shepard,” he gasps finally, his lips brushing the tendon of her neck. 

The shower beeps, letting them know that they have one minute before water preservation protocols will take effect. Shepard counteracts it by slapping the switch, turning the shower off manually. She gives each of them a cursory wipe-down with her towel, then returns to Kaidan’s arms and locks her mouth over his. She slips her tongue against the seam of his lips, and he opens to her without hesitation. He tastes like sweet chamomile; he must have had a headache earlier. She slides a hand up, and traces the barely perceptible ridges of his implant under his wet hair.

He gently tugs her fingers away, like maybe he’s still in a bit of pain. He doesn’t say a word, though — what was she saying earlier about how she has a thing for stoic men? She smiles at herself and reaches down to take him in hand. He reacts exactly as she hoped he would, sliding his palms under her thighs and hefting her up. 

She wraps her legs around his waist to stabilize herself. Kaidan carries her out of the bathroom, still kissing her. To her surprise, he doesn’t go towards the bed, instead turning to the left and banking Shepard against the wall beside the cabin door. 

“Really?” she asks, even as she lets the wall take her weight. Her damp, heated skin sticks to the cool surface and to Kaidan. 

“Been thinking about this for days,” he says. He glances down, and Shepard’s eyelids flutter as he rubs the head of his cock over her clitoris. 

“Fair enough,” Shepard manages. She’s been thinking about it, too. “But here?”

“Well, we can’t do it where the hamster will see,” Kaidan answers, and he makes it sound so logical that Shepard bursts out laughing. 

He laughs with her, breathless into her neck, then slides inside her like it’s easy, like it’s logical, too. Like there’s no war, no Cerberus, no past betrayal, no accusations or mistrust between them. Like there never was. 

Like there’s only this, only them, and it’s enough. It’s perfect. 


	2. Chapter 2

So naturally, it all goes to shit a couple days later. 

Because the Normandy is quick and quiet, they can zip in and out of Reaper-infested systems, picking up supplies and troops, dropping off others.  _ Milk runs, _ Joker calls them, but he’s quick to add that milk is important, especially to someone with Vrolik’s disease. So, it’s not a surprise when someone asks Shepard to go somewhere no one else can go, and get something no one else can get. 

It is a surprise, however, when that someone is Asari High Command. 

Their message to Liara is incredibly vague, but Shepard trusts Liara’s instincts, so she sets a course to Lesuss right away. 

What they find is beyond troubling. The Reapers have been busy, augmenting the Ardat-Yakshi to suit their disgusting purposes. It’s a tough fight, followed by a tougher conversation with Samara, and when they finally get out of there, the screams echo in Shepard’s head.

Back on the Normandy, Shepard goes straight to the war room to update the asari councilor. She’s grateful, of course, but Shepard can tell this isn’t over. Sure enough, she’s barely had time to eat before Liara forwards her another message from High Command. Shepard heads upstairs, where she showers and changes quickly, then sits down at her desk again. 

Kaidan doesn’t put in an official request this time; he just knocks. 

“It’s open,” Shepard calls, and he walks in a moment later. She stands to greet him, returns the quick kiss he gives her. 

“You ran out of the mess so fast,” he explains. “I’m here to help.” His eyes skate over the screen of her terminal and the stack of datapads she took with her from the war room. “Where do we start?”

Shepard looks around the room, too, and rubs her forehead. It’s a good question. “Asari High Command is pressing Liara about what happened with Samara and Falere on Lesuss,” she begins, “but Hackett wants me to review some reports about Reaper troop movements ASAP. I don’t think there’s anything eyes-only, so maybe you could take a look at those while I write up some more details for Liara?”

“I can do that,” Kaidan says with a sharp nod.

“You’re the best,” Shepard tells him, handing him the relevant datapads.

“I know,” he answers without missing a beat. He pecks her on the cheek when she rolls her eyes, then he heads down the steps to settle into a corner of the couch. Shepard sits back down at her desk and pulls up the email from Liara again. 

_ High Command is concerned that we left an Ardat-Yakshi in charge of what’s left of the monastery, _ Liara has added to the forwarded chain of messages from the higher-ups. _ I know you trust Samara’s judgement, but I can understand where they’re coming from. Falere is dangerous; are you certain that we made the right call? _

Shepard sighs, her fingers hovering over the console as she contemplates her reply.  _ I’m not certain of anything these days,  _ she’s half-tempted to write back, but that kind of doubt is best expressed in person or not at all; even with the multiple layers of encryption protecting their communications, you never knew who might be listening or reading. 

_ Samara is a dedicated justicar,  _ she types instead. From there, she summarizes the service record that Cerberus sent her last year when she recruited Samara for her fight against the Collectors. Despite its somewhat dubious source, she’s vetted it personally, and nothing she ever experienced while working with Samara gave her reason to doubt any of it. 

After half an hour, she’s more or less satisfied with what she has written, and moves on to something else — another urgent matter, marked for her eyes only. She always has a few of these waiting, of course, and she gets through all but one before her hamster starts his nibbling and digging. Startled, she checks the time and discovers that she’s worked well into the night-cycle again. Whether her hamster has adjusted his nocturnal habits to suit life in space, or just to her, she doesn’t know, but she’s grateful. 

“Sorry, Kaidan,” she says. “Just one more brief.”

“All good, Commander,” Kaidan replies, because they’re still working. 

Something warm seeps into her chest at his words. The simple acknowledgement is a reminder that she’s not alone in this, that she’s got the best XO in the galaxy, that her partner is right here in the thick of it, with her. 

She wasn’t lying, earlier, when she told him she couldn’t imagine facing the Reapers without him, but she can picture it now, and it’s awful. She can see Kaidan leading biotic troops on some distant planet. He’d be good at it, of course, but they’d only get periodic check-ins if they were very lucky, and those would no doubt be monitored. It’d be even worse if Kaidan had been discharged on account of his injuries, if he’d been forced to live as a civilian, separated from her by the war, neither of them knowing when or if they’d see the other again.

Shepard couldn’t bear living like that. She would rather die than be stuck in the situation that she’s seen so many times these last few months. To be left waiting for news until your hope shrivels up like a puddle on a hot day. To not know. To try and make peace with the fact that you don’t know, that you may never know what it’s like, what your partner is thinking. If they’re scared, or sad, or lonely. If they’re hurt... or worse.

She’d left Kaidan in that situation once, she thinks with a pang of guilt. Well, sort of. At least they’d been together, when the Normandy was shot down. And they were okay then. Better than okay, in fact. They were newly in love and felt invincible. Saviors of the Citadel, they’d beaten the odds, beaten Sovereign. They could do anything.

She thinks of the recording they found on the dead asari commando at the monastery today, and the one left by the krogan soldier in the cave where they fought the augmented rachni with Grunt. She reminds herself to find the commando’s bondmate, bring her some closure. Especially if the last thing they said to each other was in anger. 

Shepard’s been there too, diving through the Omega-4 relay after arguing with Kaidan on Horizon. She can’t even imagine....

“Hey,” says his voice suddenly, very close to her ear. Startled, Shepard’s head snaps up. Her eyelids are heavy, her chin feels drawn like a magnet back to her chest. Kaidan steadies her with a hand on her shoulder, nudges her chair around until she’s facing him.

“It’s late,” he says quietly. “Come on, we should get some sleep.”

“Right,” Shepard says at once, running a hand over her face. She glances at the clock again, relieved to see that only she only lost fifteen minutes. She puts her terminal into standby mode — it blinks, of course, with another new message — then gets to her feet and stretches. 

Kaidan’s already turned most of the lights in the cabin out. This is almost old hat to them now, and they each go through their routines in a matter of minutes, then climb into Shepard’s bed. Kaidan settles beside her, warm and comfortable, one arm loose around Shepard’s waist. His breathing slows almost at once, but Shepard finds herself wide awake, apparently having rested enough in those stolen fifteen minutes at her desk. 

She rolls over, away from Kaidan, and stares up at the stars overhead. She watches the blue-white shimmer of the Normandy’s mass effect field flicker up and down across the viewport. It reminds her of biotics — of Kaidan and Liara fighting those monstrous, mutated asari. She thinks about Samara, caught between her code and her daughter, willing to put a pistol to her head and pull the trigger because, when faced with the option of sacrificing one for the other, she’d rather sacrifice herself. 

Some would probably call it cowardly, but Shepard thinks she understands. Samara knew that she wouldn’t be able to live after a choice like that; Shepard wonders how  _ she’s _ going to, when all this is over. Shepard wonders if some small part of her hopes the Reapers kill her, so she doesn’t have to. 

“I can hear you thinking,” Kaidan mumbles into his pillow suddenly. 

“Sorry,” Shepard says at once. 

Kaidan draws in a breath, inches closer, and reaches out. She turns towards his touch, towards his face, barely lit by the subtle glow of the fish tank behind her. 

“You okay?” he asks. 

“Yeah,” Shepard says, but she can tell he doesn’t buy it. 

“Tell me about Samara,” he says, like he really did hear her thoughts a minute ago. “You know her well?”

“Sort of,” Shepard replies. “I helped her kill her other daughter.” 

Kaidan’s eyes go wide, so Shepard adds, “It was the right thing to do. Morinth was an Ardat-Yakshi like Falere, except that she refused to go to the monastery. She liked murdering innocent people too much.”

“Shit,” Kaidan says. He doesn’t swear much — not as much as she does, anyway — and it brings a small smile to Shepard’s lips.

“That about sums it up,” she agrees. 

“Liara told me it’s a genetic condition,” Kaidan says after a moment. “Are all of Samara’s daughters...?”

“Yeah,” Shepard says again. “She swore an oath to hunt them down and either lock them up or kill them.”

“So, without a monastery to hold Falere...” Kaidan begins. 

Shepard nods, her hair shushing against the pillow case. “And I guess, after watching two out of three die, she just couldn’t do it anymore.”

“I’m glad you were able to talk her down,” says Kaidan. His hand traces a soothing line along her hip. “You did good work today, Shepard.”

“We both did,” she corrects him, but he shakes his head. 

“I couldn’t have done that,” he says. “And even Liara — I mean, she knows more about the justicars than both of us combined, and she seemed... I don’t know. Afraid, almost? Like she didn’t want to contradict her, or speak out of turn.”

“Samara is pretty intimidating,” Shepard concedes, purposefully sidestepping the point of Kaidan’s sentiment. “You should have seen her at the Collector base,” she goes on before he can call her out on it. “She put this barrier up to protect us from the seeker swarms. Led us through this huge passage, and we got attacked four, maybe five times? But that barrier never flickered once. It was incredible.”

“Sounds like it,” says Kaidan. He sighs, slides his hand down her arm and intertwines their fingers. “I wish I could’ve been there with you.”

“You had other priorities,” Shepard says. She realizes, when a frown creases his mouth, just how dismissive that sounded. “It’s okay,” she tries again. “I understood.”

“Still,” he persists. “I’m sorry. I should’ve been there with you.”

_ We already did this part, _ Shepard almost says, remembering her words to Liara in the shuttle on their way to the fuel reactor. She can imagine, a little too easily, the way he’d smile if she said it out loud, the way he’d drop the subject, the way he’d take her in his arms and hold her until her brain finally shut off and let her sleep. 

But she’d wake up eventually. She’d wake up, and he’d wake up, and the air would be no clearer. They’d just be one step further apart, one step closer to one of them being left behind with words unsaid, like that asari commando and that krogan soldier, dying light years away from the people who needed to hear them.

“It was a crazy time,” she says. “I wished you were there, too.”

She hasn’t told him about how he was, at first. How she kept a picture of him in this very room for weeks. How his email to her likewise stayed visible, marked unread, so she could find it, read it again, keep hope alive a little longer. 

Like the widows on the Citadel, she waited. She thought a hundred times about reaching out, about replying, about getting Liara to break into the Alliance’s classified files and track him down, so she could show up, unannounced, the way he had on Horizon. She thought about apologizing the second she saw him, or maybe punching him in the face the second she saw him, and then apologizing twice. 

But there was always another crisis to deal with first, another fire to put out. And after the Illusive Man tricked her into boarding that supposedly derelict Collector vessel, she knew she was lying to herself. There was no hope. She was on a suicide mission, led by a madman willing to spend billions of credits and resources to bring her back to life, just to watch her die again. 

And she couldn’t do that to Kaidan. She couldn’t haul him back into her orbit, only to drag him down with her. It was safer, to keep someone who mattered as much as he did on the other side of the galaxy. It was easier — cowardly, maybe — to respond to Jacob’s flirtations instead. To find comfort in his arms. To fight and fuck and fight some more, to chase pleasure where she could, to not think about yesterday or tomorrow. 

“I thought we were finished,” she confesses. She isn’t even sure Kaidan’s still awake, but she has to say it. 

Kaidan takes a breath, long and slow. She thinks that maybe he’s fallen asleep, but then he opens his eyes and says, “We, as in you and your crew? Or we, as in you and me?”

“Both,” Shepard admits. “You made your feelings pretty clear.”

“I handled it badly,” says Kaidan. It’s the exact same thing he said in the hospital, and Shepard feels a flash of annoyance. 

“You did,” she says before she can stop herself. “You said I betrayed you.”

“I’m sorry,” Kaidan says again.

“I’m not looking for an apology,” Shepard snaps. “I just wanted you to know that—” 

She stops. Kaidan is no longer touching her, she realizes. The gap between them seems enormous. 

When she doesn’t speak, he pushes himself up off the pillow. “Know what?”

_ Tell her... sorry we fought, _ the dead asari’s recording says in Shepard’s head.  _ I was an idiot, Weshra, I didn’t mean any of it. _

Shepard feels a sudden dip in her stomach, like she just looked down from a very slippery ledge, and oh— oh no, she’s wrong. She’s wrong, because he loves her, and they’re in the middle of a war, and he thinks things are good. If she shatters that illusion — if she says this — she has to see it through. She can’t unsay it, or pause halfway through it, or take it back. She can’t unring that bell, can’t unsummon that thresher maw. It’ll eat them alive before morning. 

And they both have so much to do. She’s meeting with the quarians at week’s end to talk about joining the war, and she has a lot of preparations to make before they arrive. Kaidan’s got his work with the Council and the Alliance, and, on top of that, he’s offered to start training some of the younger crewmen in hand-to-hand against biotics. Unless things go very badly on both fronts, they’re as safe as they can be for a few days. This, she decides, can wait.

“It’s nothing,” Shepard lies. 

Even in the dim light of the cabin, Kaidan doesn’t look convinced. _Why does he have to be smart as well as pretty,_ she wonders. 

“We’re good,” she adds, borrowing his words again. She tells herself she’s not taking the easy way out; she’s just delaying the hard way a little. 

“You sure?” he asks.

“Yeah,” she says, because she might be saving the galaxy, but she’s a goddamned coward when it comes to this. “I’m just tired.” 

Kaidan assesses her a second longer, then settles back on his pillow. She can only make out half of his smile, can’t tell from here if it’s forced or not. “Wonder why,” he says dryly.

She huffs a laugh that’s mostly genuine, then slides forward, into his space. She turns over so he’s holding her, pressed tight against her body the way he likes. His arms encircle her, and he relaxes. 

“I love you,” he mumbles into her hair. 

“Love you, too,” she replies, because that’s all that’ll matter if they do die tomorrow.

* * *

When she finally falls asleep, she dreams about Jacob. 

It’s mundane and nonsensical, downright boring compared to the nightmares that have been plaguing her lately. Even as she’s going through it, she seems to realize how dull it is, and when she does, she starts to wake up. She slowly becomes aware of her body, of the body beside her. She hears the sheets rustle, feels her hair bunch up when she moves. 

She keeps her eyes closed a little longer, though, trying to hang on to the plot of the dream — something about stolen coffee makers. Jacob is standing in the main battery with Garrus. His arms are crossed over his expansive chest while he examines a holographic projection of an ancient satellite. Its round body is sleek and shiny on the outside, but inside it’s all white tubes and clunky circuit boards. 

“If we hit here, we can grab the spoon before it’s gone,” Jacob says.

“Yes, but what about the rubber boots?” asks Garrus, deadly serious. 

“It’s the turtles you should be worried about,” Shepard tries to tell them, but the words are whispered, and the blurry form in front of her is moving. 

“Turtles?” it mumbles.

She blinks. The main battery melts away, and Kaidan’s face comes into focus. The cabin is brighter, traces of simulated daylight spreading around them. 

“Did you just say turtles?” Kaidan asks.

“I guess so,” Shepard answers. She runs a hand over her mouth. “Sorry. Did I wake you?”

“No. Unfortunately, EDI did,” says Kaidan. He glares half-heartedly at the ceiling. 

“I’ll remind you, Major Alenko, that it was you who requested the lights be raised an hour earlier than usual,” says EDI’s disembodied voice. Shepard doesn’t think she’s imagining the AI’s pointed tone. 

“I know, EDI,” Kaidan groans, sliding out from under the blankets. “Doesn’t mean I have to be happy about it.”

Shepard pushes herself up, too, and checks the time on her omni-tool. It is quite early; they went to bed five hours ago, and she doubts she slept for more than three. 

“You got a thing?” she asks through a yawn. It’s not a very specific question, and even she has trouble understanding it, but Kaidan knows what she means.

“Yeah, vid call with the Council,” he answers, crossing the small space to find his clothes on the couch. “Stay in bed, Shepard,” he adds, when she puts her feet on the floor. 

“No, I’m up now,” she replies, standing and stretching.

“Okay,” Kaidan says, in that familiar,  _ I’m-not-gonna-fight-you _ tone. 

“Lots to do before we get to the Far Rim,” Shepard adds. It’s the most aptly-named system in the galaxy; even if they forego their planned pit stop at the Citadel, it’ll take the better part of a week to get there. “May as well get an early start.”

Kaidan finishes pulling his shirt on and crosses the room to where she’s standing in front of her closet. “You need more sleep,” he says, taking her hands in his. 

“I’m all right,” Shepard says automatically. Kaidan raises his eyebrows, and she relents. “I’ll try to take some downtime this afternoon.”

“Try hard?” he asks, and Shepard smiles. 

“Promise,” she says. 

He nods, accepting this. “I should get downstairs, get cleaned up.”

He is a bit scruffy, Shepard thinks, still a little rough around the edges after the mission yesterday and the long hours of paperwork that followed. His slightly-overgrown stubble rasps against her fingers when he raises them to his lips. She likes it. 

“You can do that here,” she argues, following him up the steps. 

“Not if I want to be on time I can’t,” he says. As if to prove his point, he turns back at the door and puts a hand on her waist. His mouth seeks hers, the kiss as chaste and professional as it was last night, when they did this dance in reverse. “I’ll see you later.”

“Count on it,” she replies, and watches him go.

She stares at the fish tank after he’s gone, watching the jellyfish bob, the Skald fishes’ fins flutter. Her eyes ache with fatigue, and despite what she said a moment ago, she really would like to go back to bed. 

She’s practically nodding off where she stands when she hears a small squeak behind her. She turns, sees her hamster twitching his nose at her. She opens the cage and slips her hand in to scratch his head. 

“How’s it going, little guy?” she asks. The hamster’s coat is soft, and he chirrups again under Shepard’s fingers. “Yeah, I know,” she tells him. “I should get a move on, huh? Galaxy to save, and all that.”

Still, she pets him a little longer, then checks that he has everything he needs. His cage is pretty dirty, she realizes; she’s been neglecting him a bit lately. 

“EDI, seal the room,” she says as she lifts the hamster out of his cage.

“Sealed,” EDI confirms at once.

“Thank you.” Shepard sets the hamster down on the floor and watches with a faint smile as he scurries around the desk. She picks up his cage, empties it of his food and habitat, and takes it into the bathroom to clean. 

Someone else could do this for her, she knows. In fact, she assigned the task to Perron for six weeks as punishment, not long after they picked up Javik from Eden Prime. A young hotshot who’d never been off-world before the Reapers came, Ensign Perron was not happy about serving under Shepard and decided to tell her so in front of a bunch of the crew in the CIC. Shepard remembers his face turning beet red as he stood six feet away and screamed that she was  _ nothing but an alien-loving war criminal. _ He called Garrus a bird, Liara a squid, and Javik a giant bug. Asked if she was planning to bring  _ one of those rodent vorcha things _ onboard next. 

Despite being tempted by what she would later learn is Javik’s go-to suggestion to deal with insubordination, Shepard took a different route. She reamed Perron out, of course — couldn’t  _ not, _ with everybody watching like that — and said she’d teach him a thing or two about rodents. 

And she did. She talked to him for an hour once a week when he came up here to clean the cage. Listened, too, dismantling his naïve notions about so-called aliens and humanity’s place in the galaxy. It was working: Perron stopped mouthing off and apologized to the non-human crew. He was even starting to respect her— and then he died.

An engineer, Perron had come with Cortez to the Citadel when Udina made his move. He was just there to be an extra set of hands, but he caught a stray Cerberus bullet. Nemesis round straight to the heart, not a damn thing anyone could do about it. He was only twenty-three.

Shepard tried for a week, but couldn’t get through to any of his next-of-kin on Earth. As soon as they could, the crew had a memorial onboard. Shepard put Perron’s name on the wall with Thane’s, with Ashley’s, with Mordin’s. It was the first all-hands that Kaidan attended, and it felt a little too much like old times. He caught her eye while she was speaking, and she knew that he was also remembering the last time they did this together, after Virmire.

She’s cleaning the cage under the showerhead, still lost in thoughts of the past, when EDI interrupts. “Shepard, you are receiving a call.”

“Kinda busy here, EDI,” she replies, grimacing as water hits the glass wall of the cage and bounces up into her eyes. 

“I am aware, and I apologize, but it’s quite urgent. Your terminal has been ringing for several minutes. Specialist Traynor asked me to intercede directly. She said it’s Admiral Hackett.”

“Shit,” Shepard says under her breath. He’s probably calling her up here because Kaidan’s on the other QEC with the Council. She remembers that she never got Kaidan’s summary of the reports last night, and definitely never sent them back to Hackett. She sets the cage on the floor, grabs a towel, and leaves the bathroom. 

“Put him through,” she says, drying her hands enough to reach for the relevant datapads. 

A second passes, but Hackett’s face doesn’t appear on her screen. 

“Hello?” says Shepard impatiently at the ceiling. “I thought you said this was urgent?”

“I had assumed that you would rather be in uniform for this conversation,” says EDI. “If you wish for Admiral Hackett to see you in your sleepwear, however, I will comply.”

Shepard glances down at her water-spattered sweatpants and torn-up N-school hoodie, and bites back a laugh. “Right. Thanks, EDI. Audio only, please.”

EDI sounds almost smug when she replies. “Of course, Shepard.”


End file.
